[leetharris]

This is kind of a wild story. Sam Altman is openly flexing that he was able to skirt the rules and regulations by threatening economic damage to California. It's not even subtle anymore.

This reminds me of when the former CEO of Hyundai, Chung Mong-koo, went to prison for embezzlement. In just 3 years he was pardoned because the President of South Korea basically said, "we need you for the economy."

We're not even pretending that the government is in control anymore. It's just full on anarcho-capitalism on display.

[swyx]

> threatening economic damage to California.

whoa there. corporations have the right to move to the best location for them. California does not have the eternal right to OpenAI's taxes and employee base. think about what you're implicitly assuming here. if one company simply leaving causes concerning "damage" then perhaps it is the government that is the problem, not the corporation driving economic growth.

[dragonwriter]

Corporations are applications of government power and have no natural rights, their legal rights are at best proxies for the rights of natural persons with some interest in them, and at worst a fiction which serves to limit the rights of natural persons.

Also, having a right to do something does not contradict a description of you leveraging power by using a threat of doing it, in the first place.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Corporations are applications of government power and have no natural rights

Sure. Whatever. The people who own and work at OpenAI have no obligation to remain in California.

(I’d also argue that global norms are currently walking back from the notion of natural rights pretty much everywhere except for in some parts of Europe. The concept doesn’t work without an appeal to divinity.)

[MichaelZuo]

The legal entity is what owns the IP, contracts, obligations, property, etc… so even if 100% of the current employees and owners moved, their collective worth and prospects would be significantly reduced if the legal entity doesn’t also come along.

[dmitrygr]

> California does not have the eternal right to OpenAI's taxes and employee base

ehh....

https://www.greenbacktaxservices.com/blog/california-exit-ta...

Skip to the "What California Can Still Tax After You Leave" section

If they do this to people, i am sure they can to corps too

[jayd16]

Maybe its the insane wealth gap that's the problem...

[rxyz]

Corporations used to not have that much political power

[krapp]

Corporations used to have their own militaries, they colonized entire nations and owned people. They underwrote kings and empires.

[int_19h]

While this is all true, they were limited to targeting smaller, less economically developed nations, where a private army was sufficient.

Today, though, one can reasonably argue that megacorps have managed to successfully capture the most powerful government on Earth.

[platevoltage]

Yeah. The East India Company was famously powerless.

[CamelCaseName]

Can someone explain to me what Sam Altman is doing to be so far ahead of everyone else in terms of navigating these high stakes roles?

This happened at YC and a number of other places too, he goes into situations with nothing and comes out on top despite all odds.

Is he that skilled an operator, negotiator, or manipulator or something?

[coliveira]

There is a book written about this topic. SA is the classic manipulator. He talks to each person whatever they want to hear, irrespective of what he really believes. Many of the things he says about AI and OpenAI are clear BS, but he'll sell that to anyone with a different flavor.

[alhazraed]

What book?

[bazmattaz]

‘Empire of AI’ maybe?

[nilkn]

His pattern seems to be:

(0) Be exceptionally intelligent and capable of applying that intelligence to people, not just code or math — necessary for everything that follows.

(1) Keep attention diversified as long as possible until the winning path becomes obvious.

(2) Focus on fringe bets, but pursue many simultaneously until one clearly dominates (see (1)).

(3) Extreme social manipulation — people-pleasing, control- and power-seeking, selective transparency, skillful large-scale dishonesty, and a willingness to hurt or betray when it serves (1) and (2) and the relational cost is acceptable.

(2) brought him into the startup ecosystem and the first YC batch in the first place (he had to start somewhere); combined with (3) he made an early fortune from a failed startup. (3) also ingratiated him with PG and others in those years. (1)+(2) ensured he always had exposure to every plausible frontier of the industry; when he was effectively fired from YC for (1)+(3), (2) made the OpenAI pivot the next obvious move — and a better one. (3) almost cost him his career a second time when the board fired him from OpenAI temporarily, but he survived because (3) also ensured he had enough to offer everyone else that he leveraged his way back in.

[FloorEgg]

I can only speculate so take it with a spoon of salt... But people who are really good at sussing out other people's wants can find ways to make more people happy. It's like a maze of interests and I guess he's just really motivated and good at navigating and aligning them (at least among the rich and powerful).

He also seems to understand something about power and perception, in that he takes calculated risks that seem to keep working out.

So in other words, he seems to be an extraordinarily skillful politician (in both the general and the Patrick Lencioni sense).

[thereitgoes456]

It's too early to say if his risks "keep working out". Restructuring is not a risk. His, and others', original decision to make the company a non-profit was also not a calculated risk in this sense.

When he was fired from OpenAI, his use of employee manipulation to regain his position is not a risk; it is the only option he had. It was his bond maturing, of carefully cultivated loyalty he had accrued over years. Gaining that loyalty was not really a risk. It was smart politics.

One risk he took is: signing away such a large portion of the company to Microsoft. I'm not sure whether that is working out.

Another risk he took is: neglecting and sidelining the "safety" portion of his organization. This caused a talent exodus and led to the formation of many competitors. I'm not sure whether that is working out either.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Restructuring is not a risk...his use of employee manipulation to regain his position is not a risk; it is the only option he had

In both cases he had the option of accepting the status quo.

[danielmarkbruce]

It's a bit much to say he goes into situations with nothing - he, along with others created OpenAI. It's a decent sized company now and they have sway with governments. All decent sized companies do as employers. This kind of stuff happens all the time and it just doesn't get reported as much.

[bix6]

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/10/10/sam-altmans-ma...

[SecretDreams]

> Is he that skilled an operator, negotiator, or manipulator or something?

He probably has everything every politician has ever asked chatgpt index and ready to be emailed out at any given time?

[btian]

He has great foresight, which helps a lot in investing and operating OAI.

[mrDmrTmrJ]

It's a great question. Here are two Paul Graham (PG) quotes on Sam Altman (Sama) from 2008 and 2009.

Note, PG is the founder of YC, Sam's former boss, and the one who removed Sam from the position of President of YC after first appointing Sam to succeed him as President of YC. (Sama was more focused on OpenAI than on YC at the time, which doesn't work when you're supposed to be leading YC.)

2008 Essay "A Fundraising Survival Guide" https://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html

Sam Altman has it. You could parachute him into an island full of cannibals and come back in 5 years and he'd be the king. If you're Sam Altman, you don't have to be profitable to convey to investors that you'll succeed with or without them. (He wasn't, and he did.) Not everyone has Sam's deal-making ability. I myself don't. But if you don't, you can let the numbers speak for you.

2009 Essay "5 Founders" https://paulgraham.com/5founders.html

5. Sam Altman I was told I shouldn't mention founders of YC-funded companies in this list. But Sam Altman can't be stopped by such flimsy rules. If he wants to be on this list, he's going to be. ... What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want.

That's PG's take on Sama.

I would say, looking at a wide range of Sam Altman's more investments https://observer.com/2025/06/sam-altman-startup-investments/

from OpenAI to Helion energy (Fusion), to Retro Biosciences (longevity), Neuralink (brain computer interface), to Reddit

Sama really wants to "build the future," and when some of those investments "hit", like OpenAI did - basically become the first new company with a clear path to a $1T valuation since Facebook or TikTok), you gain immense credibility for "betting the future will happen and getting your organization there first."

If YC's motto is "build something people want," and OpenAI is now serving 800M active users while delivering incredible revenue growth (and investors want to see both). Sama gains power by giving investors what they want, by giving users what they want, and basically authoring an entire new type of software company and a new part of the economy.

A thing to note here is that, being a YC partner and top angel investor from 2011 to 2020, you can argue that Sam himself is "the most successful YC graduate." He saw thousands of companies go through YC. He saw hundreds of 'hard tech companies' go through YC. And in that decade, he could only have learned an immense amount about how VCs/successful CEOs think and make decisions. Certainly, we see the learnings of those experiences in what he's been able to pull off since.

[kridsdale1]

Democracy lets us swap out our king and some of the nobles.

The dukes and earls are still essential to run the nation, and must be courted.

[trhway]

The government believed him that OpenAI will stay in CA the same way that that government, OpenAI founders and others believed that OpenAI will be non-profit.

I think here is the answer to another commenter's question about success - it looks like great success comes to one who is able to recognize in time when old obligations become "obsolete" and thus drop them well before those obligations start to block or heavily tax the way to further success.

[scottrogers86]

didn't Sam does this before with another company? he was able to restructure it and come out on top... searching for article... was it Helion? now that i think harder, didnt he comment about it on HN??

[clhodapp]

You might be thinking of Reddit

[GolfPopper]

That seems like expected behavior from someone whose barely veiled pitch is "the first one to AGI will IPO - Install Planetary Overlord.[1] Give me money and be part of the future ruling elite!" (Whether his actual plan is based on what he's saying in public, or to take the money and run, permanently install his company as in inescapable rent-extracting middle-man for modern life[2], or something else, I don't know.)

1. Credit to Charles Stross, The Jennifer Morgue 2. Thneed-style capitalism

[danielmarkbruce]

This is very cynical, and almost certainly deliberately false take.

Many situations are fundamentally uncertain with respect to laws/rules in place. The idea that they "skirted rules and regulations" is wrong. Did they push in an attempt to get a decision made which would favor them? Sure. But there was a decision to be made.

And, the people are supposed to be in control anyway, not the government.

[int_19h]

This is Sam Altman we're talking about, a man with a long track record of conning people. I don't think any benefit of the doubt is warranted here - I'm going to assume guilty unless and until clearly proven innocent because you only get to screw people over so many times.

[danielmarkbruce]

It doesn't matter who it is, it's naive about how the legal system works and takes the worst possible view of all the actors involved.

This wasn't some straightforward matter. Many things are not. OpenAI are not obliged to passively sit and wait while various other parties try to influence the outcome (and there were many, and they weren't nobodies).

[coliveira]

With cynical people, a cynical take is the right one.